Last Evening in Scranton

The sight of my sister squeezed into one of my leotards (she forgot to bring a bathing suit) was almost as bad as the naked bonding scene. When things are too tight, the excess flab squishes out unappealingly around all the pressure points; butt, armpits, back....you get the picture. I know that Siss felt rather uncomfortable in my camisole leotard, for she dropped her towel on a plastic chair and virtually sprinted for the jacuzzi. I was really afraid of one of those slip-and-fall-and-crack-the-skull incidents that you read about in the large-print Readers Digest. Not that I ever read those things except when I am getting an oil change. My mechanics have a bookkeeper who is sweet, elderly, and probably vision-impaired. Why else would a bunch of alpha-male grease monkeys keep large-print Readers Digest?

We settled into the jacuzzi for a wallow-cum-chat, since we had found out the hard way that the pool was kept at what felt like a constant sixty degrees. It really reminded me of my days living in San Francisco. Better I should have wrinkled fingers than blue lips. The chat was probably about family, but I remember most clearly that my sister was so uncomfortable with her body that neither she nor I could concentrate on anything else. She moved from one jet to another, carefully positioning her thighs for minimum exposure, like the old modeling schools taught you. Come to think of it, like the new modeling schools teach you, too. I had to periodically jump up on the rim and just dangle my legs in order to cool off, but she wouldn't get up with me so consequently looked faintly boiled, like a shellfish in the pot. As much as she gushed on about how great the sisters' weekend was, I couldn't help but notice that she was trying out a real relationship and wasn't feeling very positive about it. Besides this, whatever I had eaten for dinner had had onions in it, and I was suffering from bad breath and a case of the belches. I was one up on my sister, being uncomfortable for two different reasons. Or maybe more.

On this trip, it had hit me like the proverbial bolt from the blue that my sister is, was, always had been, and always would be afraid of every damned thing in life. She was afraid to wear tampax, or contact lenses. What, was she afraid they were going to get lost in there? She was so afraid of the symptoms of menopause, the hot flashes and the night sweats, that she insisted on wearing the hormone patch on her arm....for five years! She lost a breast to cancer because of it. And this is a nurse, already!

Siss is still the best of buddies with The Wet Rag because he is a convenient excuse for her NOT to go out and look for a decent man who would treat her right. This is not merely conjecture on my part; she told me so herself. She has been in therapy for forty-odd years, and just uses it as a wall to put up in front of the world to show how hard she is working at things in her life. She was, and is, in freaking stasis, and here I was in the jacuzzi of the used-to-be-Sheraton watching her hide her thighs and pretending to trade small talk with her. Visualize the emperor's new clothes. I had had it! I could feel the truth bubbling to my lips, and I knew for certain that this was probably the last sisters' weekend of my life. I was going to spill my guts that night, like it or lump it.

We sort of had it out that night, although I was more diplomatic and tactful than I thought I would be, considering my lack of vigorous exercise.

Surprisingly enough, Siss led off, jockeying for position like a chess master making the opening move. I think that she sensed what was coming,for she attacked immediately, hissing that Te Rag "had a problem" with me. She further stated that he felt that I didn't ever listen to him, I didn't "hear" him. Well, this was true, especially since The Rag rarely had a word to say for himself to anyone. Instead of spilling my guts right there, I merely pointed out that, as an adult, if The Rag had something to say to me, he needed to be a big boy and do it himself.

Her jaw dropped. She never expected that her little sister could summon such moxie, especially where it concerned such a sacred cow as The Wet Rag! Caught off guard by me for probably the first time in her life, Siss admitted to me that this was true. She admitted that she was "just afraid" of leaving him and launching out on her own. What she didn't say, and what I knew was true, was that The Rag had never told her of any problem with me. She was the one who had the problem with me as concerned The Wet Rag, and she just couldn't summon the guts to say so. She told me that she "just wanted us to be a big, happy family", entirely omitting the part where The Rag had ended their cohabitation as man and wife. Who wants to be family with the likes of that?

Our relationship was unraveling like an old sweater sleeve, showing all the frazzled yarn and dust motes of forty years.

We were terribly polite to each other on that last night, acting as if nothing had happened, each aware of the tension that hung heavy in the Scranton air. We drank the wine, watched a movie, prepared for bed. We were both sisters and strangers, and I was beginning to see which I preferred.